David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Good morning, gentlemen, and I wish Mr. Burke in his journey ahead.

As a Deputy who represents an inland county, I did not know anything about sea fishing and I am still learning. I visited Killybegs the week after I was appointed to this committee and my colleague, Senator Boyle, showed me around. When I left Killybegs to return home my view was that the people who are supposed be looking after you are doing a very bad job because I could see that they are doing everything to close the sea fishing industry in Ireland. What I saw on my day in Killybegs was just crazy stuff. One, there were boats tied up. I am sure that the thousands of people who will drive to Donegal this summer and drive around Killybegs will see all these beautiful boats tied up but will think to themselves that there is money in Killybegs and great work going on. Their views would be different if they knew that the boats were tied up two or three months ago and will not go out of the port until November because of regulations.

We all know that quotas have to be applied and I have no problem with that. The really sad part is that the fish processing factories, which have the best of technology, are closed for six or nine months of the year. During my visit I saw a machine on the port wall to take in fish.

I was told that a month previously, a load of blue whiting came in and they were instructed to put the blue whiting through the grader - if that is what it is called - through the fish machine. Everybody knows that blue whiting cannot go through that machine because it just goes into mush. I did not know this but one learns. That food that was good, was caught and came in but it all had to be sent for fish meal processing because somebody took the decision that it could not be brought up to the factory and put in.

I want to go back to what Deputy Mac Lochlainn said. I got a tour of the factory . If any other industry in Ireland was regulated and watched the way fishing is, both the boats and the processors, there would be anarchy because they would not put up with it. When walking around the factory you could see the cameras. I believe there were 100 cameras watching everything in the factory. I was shown a desk where someone was to take a sample of fish and there were three cameras pointing down. I would liken it to a casino where there are cameras pointing down watching people count the money to make sure. This is the level of technology watching. People are taking decisions that fish must be landed down in the docks and that they cannot be handled there. We are losing proper food.

The other point is on the catch samples. I am told that it is a basket down at the docks. They take a basket full of fish and then they take the sample. If this was done in the factory, the figures could be 100%. No matter what one looks at or what one sees, I believe it will get rid of the fishing industry in Ireland that in the next ten, 15 or 20 years. Our quotas are down but it is not just about the quotas being down, it is also about the processing of our fish. Not a boat will come into any of the ports, from what I am told, because of regulation. When you into Killybegs, there is what is like an aircraft control tower. This is where the SFPA sits. It is just a bank of television screens showing the whole area, I am told. From when you drive into Killybegs, into the processing part, and into the docks you are on CCTV all the time.

It seems that every obstacle is put in front of fishermen and the processors. I spoke to the owner of the fish processing factory. In the previous week or ten days, they had been at an international trade event. We are sending Ministers and people all around the world to promote Ireland for trade but this owner could not sell fish because he did not have enough. He could have sold more fish but he could not sell it because our own boats cannot land the product to get it into his fish processing factory. The problem is that because of the overzealousness of the rules that are being applied by the SFPA, no other boat will come in. So boats are coming down here but how many boats, and what tonnage, are sailing into Irish waters, collecting the fish and, because of overzealous regulation here in our ports, are turning and steaming back up to other countries to unload that product and put it through fish processing factories up there? It is bad enough that our boats are tied up for six to nine months of the year but it is crazy stuff to see factories sitting here closed up because nobody will come in due to the rules and regulations we seem to be applying but which no other country applies.

Mr. Burke referred to one SFPA officer for every six Irish fishing vessels and if you were to apply the Garda ratio, there would be five in the country. That shows us where we are.

I have two questions, the first of which relates to the 2006 Act. What do the gentlemen want us to do here, in layman's terms, to move to bring that Act up? I am sure that in the 19 years since that Act was adopted, the whole market and everything has changed. We have to look at what the witnesses believe we should do.

If the fishermen had a lobby for the fishing industry like the Irish Farmers Association over the last 30 or 40 years maybe we would not be looking at the wholesale destruction of the fishing industry. As a person looking in from the outside that is what I see it as. It is just the complete and wholesale destruction of our fishing industry in stymieing what our boats are allowed to catch. Even worse, fish production facilities cannot even have another boat come in. It is bad enough that a boat is out in Irish waters catching Irish fish but they cannot even bring it into our ports to be processed in our ports, whether that is Killybegs, Castletownbere or wherever it is. Those boats are having to sail to another country to unload that product and get it into the market. What do the gentlemen here want us to do, and me to do, in this committee to help them in respect of the 2006 Act?